The government has decided to remove or cut duties on 555 products that it imports from Singapore in a move to enhance bilateral trade with the island nation.
According to information and broadcasting minister P R Dasmunsi, ?The Cabinet has given its approval for tariff elimination/reduction on 555 products through a protocol of amendment of India-Singapore comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA).? The minister added the tariff elimination/reduction would come into effect from Saturday.
The government has said as Singapore is a member country of the Asean, the India-Singapore CECA would later incorporate all improvements made in the India-Asean free trade agreement (FTA). This will maximise gains of both India and Singapore.
The government will offer Singapore any improvement regarding terms of product coverage timeline and rules of origin, made in the Asean-India FTA. For this, appropriate amendments will be made later to India-Singapore CECA.
India and Singapore had signed the CECA in June 2005. The CECA was ratified in August 2005 and the two countries had reviewed the agreement in October this year.
The bilateral trade in 2006-07 was about $11.5 billion (up 30% from the previous year), with the trade balance in favour of Singapore as its exports to India constituted over $6 billion. FDI inflows from Singapore to India in 2006-07 was $578 million, up from $275 million in the previous fiscal. One of the important issues to be settled is that the monetary authority of Singapore has not yet granted qualified full banking licence to SBI and ICICI to permit the banks to open more branches in that country.